SACRAMENTO — The state Assembly on Friday unanimously approved a bill that would authorize a Ronald Reagan statue inside the Capitol.

Republican Assemblyman Curt Hagman, of Chino Hills, told fellow lawmakers that Reagan deserves a special place inside the Capitol because he is the only California governor to become president. The actor-turned-politician is buried at his presidential library in Simi Valley.

While past governors have portraits throughout California’s Capitol, the bill would allow the first statue of a governor. It would be paid through private donations.

Hagman said former President Jimmy Carter has a memorial in Georgia’s Capitol, and a Lyndon Johnson statue stands at the Texas Capitol.

California also honors Reagan in the U.S. Capitol’s National Statuary Hall. In 2006, the state Legislature voted to remove a statue of Civil War abolitionist Thomas Starr King and replace it with a bronze statue of Reagan.

King’s statue has been returned to California and placed in a garden outside the Capitol. The state’s other statue is of Father Junipero Serra, the Franciscan missionary.